"Cybermen," Ianto said quietly. "At least the Daleks killed cleanly." He put his cutlery down, his appetite gone. The silence stretched for a few moments before the Captain nodded, her eyes lingering on his hands before returning to his face.
"We all lost good people there," she said. She looked over her shoulder and nodded to Lieutenant Dowell who made the rounds with a bottle of brandy. Ianto didn't object as she poured some into an empty glass she brought for him. The Captain raised her glass and the rest of the table followed suit. Ianto reached for his glass and picked it up a moment after the rest of the table did. "To absent comrades," the Captain said.
Ianto bent his head for a moment as he silently added her toast before taking a sip of the brandy. The fiery liquid burned a pathway down his throat. He raised his gaze to the Captain and nodded his thanks for the tribute.
"Captain, you would not believe the facilities that Torchwood has," the General finally spoke. "Do you know that this man hand feeds a pet pterodactyl?" There were murmurs about the table at his comment. Ianto could see that several of the men at the table looked towards the General with disbelief, but none of them seemed to want to come out and accuse him of lying. "Saw it with my own eyes. What do you call it again?"
"Her name is Myfanwy," Ianto said, glad for the change of subject by the General. He raised his glass and silently toasted the unofficial member of his team as a reason to change the subject. The Captain certainly looked impressed, and he had a feeling that she didn't impress easily.
"A pterodactyl?" She asked and he nodded. "Why do you have one for a pet?"
"Why not?" He asked, finally letting himself smile at her. The tension he felt just a few moments before had dissipated with the liquor and change of topic. "Besides, it's not like we could very well send her back through the rift."
"This rift," one of the more senior officers finally spoke, a major by the stripes on his uniform. Ianto turned and looked at him as he asked his question. "We've been monitoring it from up here. Our sensors show a lot of fluctuation." Ianto nodded in agreement. "How can you track what it spits out?"
"We have several methods for tracking, based on past experience and devices we've developed for monitoring," Ianto explained. "You do it long enough and there are ways to predict what it is going to do., though we do run around the clock watch since one never knows when something will come through. Usually at the most inopportune of times." The men looked impressed at his comment.
The meal was followed by coffee and dessert, and the General practically swooned as he drank the cup that his aide had brought to him. "Jones, how did you manage this?" He asked in amazement. "This is actually palatable. Dare I say that it reaches the realm of extraordinary?"
Ianto laughed outright as he took a sip from his own cup. It was a definite improvement over the earlier batch that the Lieutenant had made. Either she had found better equipment or had improved with practice.
"I didn't make it, Lieutenant Dowell did," Ianto said and he saluted the woman behind the General with his cup. She blushed and looked down at her shoes as the General turned and stared at her in amazement.
"Grant, give that woman a promotion," Captain Abrunjo said as she took a sip of her own coffee. "This is that good." The men at the table dutifully laughed at her joke and she rolled her eyes at their sycophancy. Ianto pursed his lips together after sharing a glance with the blushing Lieutenant.
A moment later his watched beeped. He hit the button to shut off the alarm and looked up at the Captain. "That hopefully means that the first upload of the navigational code has finished. Captain, I apologize for the abruptness, but if you would excuse me, I had better get back to it if you don't want to turn into a permanent fixture above Cardiff." He stood and placed his napkin to on the table next to his plate. "Captain, General," he nodded to each of them.
"Mr. Jones," the Captain said with a nod. "Please update me once you have an assessment of how it went." Ianto nodded before turning to leave. The Lieutenant whispered to the General who nodded and she followed the Torchwood agent out the door to escort him back down to the computer center.
Once Lieutenant Dowell had left him seated at his laptop in the computer centre, Ianto went back to work. He checked the system computers to test the code before starting the upload of the next segment. This involved lifting parts of the raised floor to get to the conduit that he needed access to. The ensigns on duty watched him with fascinated expressions on their faces as he went from one system to another within the room, working late into the evening.
It was on the next shift change that he realized how late it was. He closed his eyes for a moment to relieve the burning he felt from staring at the computer screens for so long. He sat back with a sigh and stretched. Bringing his arm down, he glanced at his watch and winced. It was now past one in the morning. He had only to set one last program running for the night before hitting his bed. He made the last change he had to and set the file to upload into the main frame.
"That's it for me," he told the young woman who was sitting at the navigational controls. She nodded at him nervously as he stood up and stretched. Setting his laptop back into its security mode, he bid her good evening before heading out the door and back to his cabin.
It was eerily quiet as he made his way down the corridor, the lights dimmed in deference to the lateness of the hour. There was still that ever present hum of the machinery, but it felt muted as well. He reached his cabin and let himself inside, not bothering to even turn on the light. It wasn't like the room was that large, after all.
He pulled off his suit jacket and rested it over the back of the single chair in the room. Disrobing, he pulled back the covers and crawled onto the bunk. He sighed as he tried to let his thoughts slow down enough to fall asleep. Between the events earlier in the evening and the work he had done afterwards, his mind was spinning with bits and pieces of detail from the night. His thoughts kept on drifting back to the Captain. After a while, they morphed into another captain and he drifted off to sleep, exhaustion finally winning out as he drifted off to sleep.
*
Again, it felt like no time had passed before his alarm went off again, waking him. Light drifted in from under the doorway and he lay in the bed, feeling reluctant to get up. The bunk was narrow, and reminded him of another he spent a lot of time in a few kilometers below the one he was in now. He smiled, wondering what Jack was up to at that moment. Hopefully doing the same thing and reclining in his bed rather than chasing Weevils.
Reaching over to the chair where he had put his watch he glanced at it. It was just about dawn, so he thought Jack may be awake. Fitting his com into his ear, he hailed the captain.
"Jack, as you awake?" Ianto asked softly.
"Mmmmm," Jack answered. "For you, always." Ianto rolled his eyes, even though Jack couldn't see him. "How's it going?"
"I got the last of the navigational code uploaded and we should be ready to test that this morning. After that, I'll do the weapons upload. With luck that should go faster and I may be home this evening," Ianto said. He yawned and stretched.
"Good," Jack said. "This bed is rather lonely without you."
"I could say the same up here," Ianto said and Jack chuckled.
"Hey," Jack said, struck by a sudden thought. "If we're both in bed and chatting, is this phone sex?"
"No," Ianto said patiently. "Because one would actually have to have sex while chatting." He knew where this was going to lead and he was sorry that he was going to have to cut Jack off because if they got started he'd never get anything else accomplished that morning. "And the answer is no. This is not a secure line this high up. Not when we're tunneling through the Valiant's communications system."
"What, you don't want to give that beautiful captain a thrill?" Jack asked and Ianto could just picture the naughty expression on his face. "Speaking of who, what did you think of her?"
"Speaking of whom," Ianto corrected absently. "She's interesting. She asks a lot of questions and she doesn't seem to be very tolerant of the junior officers pandering to her." Jack laughed at his description.
"Maybe I should invite her down for a tour," Jack mused. He caught the tone in Ianto's voice and had to admit he was intrigued by what he had read about her as well. "Think she'll go for it?"
"She might," Ianto acknowledged. "I can suggest if you like." Jack agreed. "Well, if I'm going to get anything accomplished, I better go. Need to take a shower and get back to the laptop."
"A shower sounds interesting," Jack drawled and Ianto laughed softly. "A pity the com would probably short."
"Jack, don't ever change," Ianto said with a grin on his face. "I wouldn't be able to bear it if you did."
"Don't plan on it, Ianto." Jack promised him. "Okay, get to work. I want you home for supper."
"No promises, Jack. Work to do and all," Ianto said. He signed off and removed the com from his ear. Lying back in his bed, he reviewed what he needed to get done. All in all, they were in pretty good shape. He gave a mighty stretch before getting out of bed. He put on a pair of running shorts for the short walk down to the showers and brought his toiletry kit with him. It was still early enough that there wasn't anyone about as he made his way down the corridor to the men's shower.
